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A key test of any quantum theory of gravity is its ability to reproduce the known thermodynamic properties of black holes. A statistical mechanical description of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy once seemed remote, but today we suffer an…
We evoke situations where large fluctuations in the entropy are induced, our main example being a spacetime containing a potential black hole whose formation depends on the outcome of a quantum mechanical event. We argue that the…
The basic features of a quantum field theory which is Poincar\'e invariant, gauge invariant, finite and unitary to all orders of perturbation theory are reviewed. Quantum gravity is finite and unitary to all orders of perturbation theory.…
Black hole entropy is a robust prediction of quantum gravity with no established phenomenological consequences to date. We use the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy formula and general-relativistic statistical mechanics to determine the…
We discuss the interior of a black hole in quantum gravity, in which black holes form and evaporate unitarily. The interior spacetime appears in the sense of complementarity because of special features revealed by the microscopic degrees of…
The spacetime singularities in classical general relativity are inevitable, which are also predicated by the celebrated singularity theorems. However, it is general belief that singularities do not exist in the nature and they are the…
I summarize the basic ideas and formalism of loop quantum gravity. I illustrate the results on the discrete aspects of quantum geometry and two applications of these results to black hole physics. In particular, I discuss in detail a…
The issue of a possible damping of the entropy periodicity for large black holes in Loop Quantum Gravity is highly debated. Using a combinatorics/analysis approach, we give strong arguments in favor of this damping, at least for…
In gr-qc/9908036 [Phys. Lett. A 265 (2000) 1] a new method was given which naturally led to a quantum of mass equal to twice the Planck mass. In the present note which, for convenience, we write formally as a continuation of that paper, we…
Gravitational perturbations which are present in any realistic stellar collapse to a black hole, die off in the exterior of the hole, but experience an infinite blueshift in the interior. This is believed to lead to a slowly contracting…
This paper consists of three steps. In the first, we prove that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is the unique expression of black hole entropy. Our proof is constructed in the framework of thermodynamics without any statistical discussion.…
To model the interior of a black hole, a study is made of a spin system with long-range random four-spin couplings that exhibits quantum chaos. The black hole limit corresponds to a system where the microstates are approximately degenerate…
I reconsider Hawking's analysis of the effects of gravitational collapse on quantum fields, taking into account interactions between the fields. The ultra-high energy vacuum fluctuations, which had been considered to be an awkward…
In this essay we argue that once quantum gravitational effects change the classical geometry of a black hole and remove the curvature singularity, the black hole would not evaporate entirely but approach a remnant. In a modified…
We present a coherent picture of the quantum mechanics of black holes. The picture does not require the introduction of any drastically new physical effect beyond what is already known; it arises mostly from synthesizing and…
There ought to exist a reformulation of quantum theory which does not depend on classical time. To achieve such a reformulation, we introduce the concept of an atom of space-time-matter (STM). An STM atom is a classical non-commutative…
Consistency between quantum mechanical and general relativistic views of the world is a longstanding problem, which becomes particularly prominent in black hole physics. We develop a coherent picture addressing this issue by studying the…
We study the effect of self-gravity on entropy by directly solving the 4D semi-classical Einstein equation. In particular, we focus on whether the Bekenstein-Hawking formula holds when self-gravity is extremely strong. As an example, we…
A `black hole sector' of non-perturbative canonical quantum gravity is introduced. The quantum black hole degrees of freedom are shown to be described by a Chern-Simons field theory on the horizon. It is shown that the entropy of a large…
A state of a black hole in loop quantum gravity is given by a distribution of spins on punctures on the horizon. The distribution is of the Boltzmann type, with the area playing the role of the energy. In investigations where the total area…